A Glass of Water

It's Friday again. I'm quite tired. I have worked throughout the week. I worked particularly hard this week because I am about to go on holidays. So today, I am going to do something simple. I am going to translate a very short poem. The poem is written by another Spanish poet, Andrés Sánchez Robayna (1952 - ). Here it is with my own English and Chinese translations:

El Vaso de Agua               The Glass of Water               那杯水

 

el vaso no es una medida   the glass is not a measure   那杯不是尺

sino su estancia solamente  but solely its farm               祇是其居所

 

una terraza pide al sol:         a terrace asks the sun:       洋台問太陽:   

sólo la luz en que se basa    only the light in which it bases itself 唯所賴之光

 

más alto el vaso no es más alto  the higher glass is not higher杯更高亦不高

ni menos hondo si se alza     nor less deep if it is raised        被提亦不更深  

 

terraza alta en su mañana     high terrace in its morning      高台在其晨

o luz altiva ya le bastan        or high light already suffice for them或光高已夠

 

lo que reposa en él reposa   whatever rests in it rests          息居其所息    

sin ser mas cosa que mirada without being more than its looks亦不跨其觀

 

In this poem, the poet writes in short, precise, condensed couplets, making the most of the kind of ellipses permitted by the rules of Spanish grammar. He writes about the most common daily object possible: a glass of water. To him, the glass of water is not a simply a glass of water. It has become a step in a staircase. It is a staircase leading up to the heavens. Through this staircase, he rises up to the sky, through the rays of sunlight reflected from the surface of the water resting calmly, serenely and peacefully within that glass. Through that glass of water, he reaches as far as the sun.

The glass is transparent. So is the water. The glass and the water are transformed, they are transformed by light. It is the light of the sun god, Appollo. In Greek and classical thought, Apollo is not only a sun god. It is also the god of reason. It is the god of light. That light is the light of reason. That light is the light of reflection. Not just physical reflection as the property of light when it shines upon a surface which allows the light which hits it to return at the same angle at which it hits that surface but in another direction. It is a different kind of reflection. It is the kind of reflection which takes place within the millions of nuerons inside the human brain, hidden within the frenetic activity which each second occurs at the moment when neurotransmitters jump across the space separating them from the receptables at the end of the next dendrites. That is the moment when millions of sparks occur. Such sparks together become a giant spark. It is the spark of understanding, when things which otherwise appear chaotic and disordered suddenly assume order. That order is the order of our reasoning power. 

And what is the result of that reflection? The poet thinks that the glass is not a prison. I cannot imprison our imagination, our thoughts, our reflection. As he says, the glass is not a measure. It cannot measure our intelligence nor the full extent of our imagination. The glass is only a provisional residence for the water, which belongs to Nature and which will never for a moment cease to interact with the other phenomenon of Nature like the sun eg, through the medium of light which joins both. Perhaps the glass is sitting comfortably on a table in the terrace. So the poet's thought wanders from the glass of water where the glass was. A thought occurs. It is a question. He wishes to ask the sun a question about its light on which the sun relies to shine upon the surface of the water in the glass. Perhaps he raises the glass to inspect it in the sunlight. Another thought occurs: the glass remains a glass whether it is raised or not. It will not achieve more depth by being rasied higher by others. Then his thought goes back to the terrace. The terrace already has sufficient light. It does not need more. It does not need more by being higher than where it is.

In the final couplet, everything returns to its point of origin. Everything remains unchanged. The glass can rest where it rested. The terrace remains where it was. Everything regains its looks; its external appearance. But in the meantime, the poet's mind has made a round trip to the sun and back. It made that trip through the light of reason. A simple poem. A reflective poem. A philosophic poem. In just 5 simple couplets! Perhaps he is not talking about a glass of water. The water may be the water of life and the glass its container, our body!

This poem is taken from his poetry collection La Roca 1984. This is the first time I read any of his poems. According to the information I got from Wikipedia, he is born in the Canarias, a group of islands around Spain in the Atlantic, in 1952, got a Ph D from the University of Laguna there in 1977 and is the director of the Centre of Debate and Thinking of the Atlantic Centre of Modern Art there and an editor of the the review Literadura of Barcelona in 1976.

He is a prolific writer and from the article on him in the Wikipedia, he has the following publications:

Día de aire (Tiempo de efigies). El Ancla en la Ribera, 1970. Clima. Edicions del Mall, 1978. Tinta. Edicions del Mall, 1981. La roca. Edicions del Mall, 1984. Poemas 1970-1985. Edicions del Mall, 1987. Palmas sobre la losa fría. Cátedra, 1989. Fuego blanco. Àmbit Serveis Editorials, 1992. Sobre una piedra extrema. Ave del Paraíso Ediciones, 1995. Poemas 1970-1995. Vuelta, 1997. Inscripciones. Ediciones La Palma, 1999. Poemas 1970-1999. Galaxia Gutenberg, 2000. El libro, tras la duna. Pre-Textos, 2002. En el cuerpo del mundo: obra poética (1970-2002). Galaxia Gutenberg-Círculo de Lectores, 2003. Sobre una confidencia del mar griego: precedido de Correspondencias, en colaboración con Antoni Tàpies. Huerga y Fierro Editores, 2005.